


A Promise

by Palomina



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Immortality, Merlin through the ages, My First Work in This Fandom, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 16:12:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9910682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palomina/pseuds/Palomina
Summary: And Gwen looked at him, eyes ever so kind and soft, and she whispered: "I'm sorry, old friend." "What could you possibly be sorry for?", he asked. "For soon leaving you behind alone in this world." And Merlin smiled at her for her kindness, and then he wept, knowing he had nothing left in the world but her. "Promise me, Merlin,"she whispered, chest heaving."Promise me to remember."





	

So, first of all:  
SPOILER-WARNING:  
Spoilers for Merlin up to and with season 5.  
And second of all: English is not my first language, so please forgive whatever mistakes I may have made. Feel free to point them out to me.  
Notes at the end.  
Have fun!

He left Camelot as soon as Gwen died. She had lived a long, although by no means peaceful live. Peace was not for the kings and queens of this age, and especially not for Gwen, sweet, good-hearted Gwen, who had never wanted to be a queen, never wanted a Kingdom to rule but only to be at the side of the man she loved. Never the less she had been a good ruler. Just and fair and compassionate. And when she despaired at times over the things she had to do, the lifes that were lost under here care, she did so with nobody but Merlin for a witness.  
He had stood at her side every minute of this endless fight, at every turning point, every war, every hour of political intrigues. She stayed strong because she could not bear to abandon what Arthur had loved more than everything, what he had fought for so hard. And neither could Merlin. Camelot was all they had left from the man they both had loved so much.

But Merlin knew, knew since the day Arthur had died that the Camelot he and Gwen were so fiercely trying to maintain was destined to fall apart without it’s King.  
It truly started when the last knights of the round table died.  
Leon first, lost to a stray bandit arrow. Such a mundane way to die, for a man so good, so loyal and fierce. But death was seldom heroic, and even the best would go when he called for them.  
Percival went years after, living long enough to marry, to become father to a beautiful daughter. To witness here die from a fever, not having lived more than 10 summers. Reckless and half mad with grieve he went to his death in the next battle. Merlin tried to see it as mercy. He was with his daughter now.

And then, decades later, when Gwen was lying in her bed, dying of old age and sickness, she took his hand, young and strong as on the day Arthur had died, in her own, wrinkled with age and labour. And she looked at him, eyes ever so kind and soft, and she whispered to him: “I’m sorry, old friend.”  
“What could you possibly be sorry for?”, he asked.  
“For soon leaving you behind alone in this world.” And Merlin smiled at her for her kindness, and then he wept, knowing he had nothing left in the world but her.  
“Promise me, Merlin,” she whispered, chest heaving, “Promise me to remember. It is not going to be easy for you, but you must remember. Remember who we were when we were young. Remember our smiles and our pain. Why we did what we did. Remember your kindness and open heart. Arthurs bravery and the love he bore his people. Gwaines laughter. Lancelots noble heart. Leons will to serve. Elyans courage. Percivals softness. Remember them all, even Morgana, her compassion and will to protect and Mordred, and how desperately he tried to do right.” She smiled, then and there, her breath growing weaker. “You have a kind heart, Merlin. Don’t ever let anything change that.”  
He stayed at her side long after she had gone cold. All through the night until the morning came. Then he stood up, walked out of Camelot and never returned.  
Soon after the death of her Queen Albion fell into civil war and ruin. And Merlin became driven, never staying long in one place. He preferred to stay away from people and only murmurs of ghost were what hinted to his existence. 

For centuries he merely endured, not taking part in the moving of the world. He tried to keep the promise he gave Gwen, and once a day he would sit down, close his eyes, and remember the past, no matter how painful it was. But some hundred years after the fall of Camelot he began to realize that he could no longer remember certain faces. He did not know what Will had looked like anymore, could not picture his eyes, his hair, his face. Soon other faces started to blur too, and he no longer knew of Freya’s appearance but that she had been beautiful and soft, fragile but brave.  
He then began burning their faces in the air, in the ground, on the trees around him. Arthur, Gwen, Lancelot, Gwaine, Elyan, Leon, Percival, Gaius… Morgana, Mordred.  
Sometimes, he would talk to them. Recount their adventures to them like they used to do when they were sitting at the campfire. He would hear their laughter in his head and he could imagine them teasing each other, boasting with tales of courage and bravery. He’d even hear their voices, although he suspected their sounds had long since been altered by the void of time.

But some time, after the first machines arrived and the world became loud and noisy, he grew numb and tired of the past. He did not want this pain anymore, did not want the ghost of people long gone. So he broke his promise and tried to forget. He buried them deep, all the memories of their youth, of who he was. It was easier and live seemed simpler to bear.  
But the blank spots on the maps started to fill and soon he realized that there was no place anymore to wander in the shadows, no empty deserts, or waste woods to hide in. He was forced to share his space with people, no longer being able to avoid them. Having only glanced bits of the world with its people and how it changed, he was surprised to find out how much was different. The world had grown hard and was now fast and full of steel, it’s habitants possessed by thoughts of money and greed, and there was no honour in them anymore. They seemed like children to him, all of them, and so small, so insignificant compared to the vastness of time. Living and dying in a blink of an eye, struggling through a meaningless existence.

He built himself a cottage far off, only seeing those who had lost themselves in the woods. Sometimes, they would knock at his door, these lonely walkers, and he would point them in the direction of their homes, usually being inhabitants of one of the villages nearby.  
One day, a young man arrived, half starved to death, no older than 16. He knocked and fainted at his doorstep and Merlin looked at him curiously. Even from afar he saw the illness that was shaking the young body and he knew he would not live through the night. Almost a mercy it seemed to him, for to die now or fifty years from now, what did it matter? Death would come for him eventually and judging by his look, live would not have been kind to him in the meantime.  
But something stopped him from turning away, a toneless voice in his head, a faraway memory of soft eyes and kind hands. And in a thoughtless decision he fell back upon his magic to lift the boy onto his bed, to heal his wounds and nurture his body. Afterwards he sat at his side a long time, studying the boy for it had been long since he had been so close to other people. And he sat and thought and something stirred in him that he could not name.  
The boy awoke the next day. Merlin brought him soup and blankets, but he did not speak and the boy did not dare to ask. Soon he slept again, as his body had not yet recovered from the strain. He had been there two days before he uttered his first words. They were: “Thank you.”  
Merlin looked at him curiously.  
“What for?” he asked eventually. The boy looked startled.  
“For saving my life.”  
Merlin was silent for a long time.  
“If I’d let you die, you would not have felt a thing. You simply would never have woken. I’d have been easy. But now, you will live to see sorrow and pain and then die another day. Why would you thank me for this gift?”  
The boys answer was passionate.  
“Because life is beautiful. With all its sorrows and pains, it is still beautiful. Because there is also joy and happiness and long sunny days where there is food to eat and wine to drink and people to laugh with. I will not be cowed by the vision of death. All things end, that is the way of the world, but I won’t let it stop me from living while I can.”  
So much energy, so much innocence was in that voice and in this face as Merlin had not seen in a long time. And he found that he admired it. And for once, the human being in front of him did not seem small but simply young. So incredibly young.  
The boy stayed to live in his house for long after. Soon it had become a year, and even though for Merlin it seemed no more than seconds, for the boy it seemed like lifetimes and soon he wanted to leave to seek his fortune in the world.

When he was gone Merlin did, for the first time in ages, feel lonely. So he did what he had not done in a long time. He left his home and went to mingle with the people of this world. He followed the ways the boy took, always watching from afar, never showing himself. Sometimes, when there was danger coming up or trouble on the way, Merlin would help, little nudges of magic here and there. He watched as the boy grew up to be a man, as he built a house, became a gifted craftsman. He watched him fall in love and get his heart broken, watch him despair at night over the loss of his love, and then, after time, come over it. He saw him love again, saw him make friends and laugh.  
There were cold days and winters were all hope of seeing the summer seemed lost, but the now hard and strong man never gave up and eventually, he always survived. He married, and even though two of his five children died before they had seen their second summer, it did nothing to dampen his emotions and if anything, he only loved his other children the fiercer. So he lived and fought and laughed and cried, and so high and changeable the emotions seemed to Merlin that he almost felt dizzy just watching. And then, when the man had reached his 50th year on earth, his horse slipped passing over the wet stones near the river and fell hard, burying the man under it. Panicked it ran off, leaving his masters broken body behind. It was then that Merlin finally stepped out of the shadows and knelt down next to the man, stroking the bloody hair out of his face. He drew the mans body up against his own, lifted his head against his chest. The man’s eyes cracked open and despite the pain that was lined into his face, he smiled.  
“Hello, old friend.” he whispered. “An irony, it would almost seem, that it is here, at death’s doorstep that we meet once again.”  
“I could heal you,” Merlin offered, unsure of where the words came from. “I could give you once again the gift of life. Do you wish for me to do so?”  
But the man shook his head. “I have lived a long and happy life, thanks to you old friend.” He smiled. “Do not think I have not seen you in the shadows, have not guessed at what you did for me. And for that I thank you, but I am an old man now. We are not made to endure and if God should wish for me in his heavenly halls now, far be it from me to deny him.”  
“Are you not afraid?”  
The man shock his head. “Death is the price we all pay for the gamble of life, and mine has been a good one. I will pay this price gladly.”  
A tremor ran through his body, and blood began to leak out of the corner of his mouth. “Thank you,” he breathed heavily, “for your kindness.” Then his eyes fell shut. It was only then that Merlin realized he was crying.  
He stayed there for several long-streched minutes, not sure what to do with the emotions that welled up inside him. Eventually, he lifted the man in his arms, and gently lowered his body in the river, to be carried away by the stream into the open sea. It somehow seemed right so him. 

Then, the first time in almost 40 years, he went home again, to his cottage and the solitude of the woods. And he sat down and he tried to remember all that he knew of humans for it seemed to him they were so much more than the screaming, noisy children he had taken them for for such a long time. And long he lingered in memories of the mans life, and eventually, the memories led to something else, something long buried. To another man, who had also been blond, and brave, and who had loved much and fought hard. And he could not remember his face and could not recall his voice, but he remembered laughter and joy and long hours spent together in the woods. He remembered golden dragons and red banners flatter in the wind and the clang of swords and the glittering of a crown. And with that, other memories came, of other knights, red cloaks flapping in the breeze, of shared laughter and shared adventures. Memories of a lifetime. And eventually, memories of a promise. A promise to remember. A promise to be kind. And a promise to never change.  
Oh how disappointed they would be to see him now, these people who had cared for him so much, to see what he had become. Apathic, grim, emotionless. Leaving mankind to suffer and die, turning his back on those around him, ignoring their suffering. Looking down at them, believing himself to be above their likes. How wrong he had been. He thought of the man. He had been so much better than him.

The next day, he left his cottage and went to life in a village far away, where nobody yet new him. He told a story of dead parents and dead friends, and the people accepted his grim and sincere being as consequences of grieve. He tried to fit in, and he tried to live, earning coin by mixing herbs and roots for remedies and treating the ill. It was hard and soon he became overwhelmed by all the people around him, the etiquettes that were to be followed, the haste of life.  
He left after ten years, not being able to bear the strain of human life and suffering any longer.

He retreated to the silence of the woods, and did not emerge until half a century later. This time, he went into one of the bigger cities, and instead of starting to work, he chose to study. He applied for Medicine and when the classes began, his mind was full of wonder. He drowned himself in books and papers, eager to learn what he could, to understand the working of the world. He kept away from other people, but eventually, he began to make something resembling to friends. People he talked to in class, people he did not mind being around.  
After he graduated he became a Doctor again, feeling the deep-seated wish to help people, to repay them for the years he had done nothing. He never took lovers, and he never went out, but he found peace in it and he stayed there for a lifetime, until all those he had once known as young men had withered away. Then he too, disappeared, and returned to the woods. But this time, he did not stay, for he longed for the presence of other human beings and the distractions of a busy life. He chose to start again as a student, and he went to study, after much thought, the upcoming teachings of psychology. He found it interesting, the working of minds, and much that he had not understood in the behaviour of humans before he saw with clear eyes now. But still he felt drawn to the arts of healing and soon after working as a psychiatrist for no more than a year, he applied again for medicine and began his life as Doctor anew. He made friends that were more than acquaintances and he went out with them, exploring life.  
And when he had worked long enough to be considered old and grey, he took to traveling, and he was amazed at how much the world had to offer. And so it was, that even after this lifetime ended, he did not return to solitude but travelled the world, losing himself in its marvels and by that, finding himself once more bit by bit. He started to laugh again, to smile freely and to enjoy food and drink and good company. And after some time, he even started to love again, and he cursed the world and all the powers above for it because by default, he lost them and it hurt so much. But he swore to the memory of his youth that he would not break his promise again, so he stayed strong, and he continued on living. The only thing he swore to deny himself forever was to continue his legacy, to father children. Such a loss as this, watching them grow old and eventually die, he never wanted to face, he never could, for he was sure it would break him, and he feared what destruction he might bring upon himself, upon the world, should he ever lose himself so thoroughly again. 

And then the wars came, the big, all destroying wars, and he forced himself to live through them. He would go into the field as a doctor, would safe whoever he could, one time on this side, then the other, and he learned to count the victories in the lifes saved rather than the ones lost. And they cheered at him for the lifes he saved and then frowned at him for the lifes he spared because he would not kill, not even the enemy, and he would not put one mans life above another, no matter who he was.  
And so it was that he lived through the wars being praised and cursed alike, but he did not care for it because his heart was silent and his conscious clean. And after the wars, he went to a place far away and he found peace in the countryside undisturbed by corruption and destruction. 

It was there that he started to write. At the beginning it were only phrases, hanging half finished in the air, single words that made no sense. It was so hard to express himself. But slowly, the words started to flow and soon they filled pages, entire books, the memories of what he had seen and what he had lived through. And eventually, he came to those, the very first ones, the ones that were like a long forgotten dream, even to him. Much of the names and places he had forgotten, so he took to reading the legends about himself, the time he lived in, hoping to find something familiar. And indeed, he did. Uther, the memory of fear and a cruel face became a name once more. Gawaine and the knights of the round table, Lancelot, Elyan, Percival. One he lacked, one name to match with curly hair and unwavering loyalty and life-long service, but it would not come to him again and no legend told of him. And then there were other names, names that did not match what was written about them, but he recognized them none the less. Freya. His first love. The girls that had meant so much to him. He did not write much about her, was unable to put in words the memories of her last breaths, of her suffering. So he only wrote what he felt, how much he loved here then, loved here still, and that there would never be someone else like her. And then he let it rest.  
Some people remained nameless, and he had to accept that never again would he remember the name of his mother or father, or the man that had raised him as his own.  
But there were names he never quite managed to forget. Guinevere, for one, so underestimated by the legend of today. So much more than they said of here, wise and kind and just and compassionate. And never did he forget the decades he spent at her side at the many dangers they faced together for the good of the kingdom. And never did he forget the promise she bad of him at her dying breath and the softness and kindness she had kept through all these years of fighting. She was, and always would be, Queen among women and the best person he ever knew, the best friend he ever had.  
And then Arthur. Of course, brave, loyal, noble, kind, just, kingly Arthur. It was hard to write his name down. So hard. And the memories, even though being blured by the centuries, still hurt like a fresh wound. But still he wrote. About the man who had lead a kingdom back into light, who had been fair and just and who had loved so much and trusted so willingly. Who had been his best friend, his brother, his soulmate, his life.  
And with him, Morganas story came up, and Mordreds and he found he had no energy anymore to hate them, so he pitied them instead.  
And after years spent remembering the past, writing it down, he finally laid down the pen, having told everything worth telling. And in this act, he realized, he had found a small bit of piece, a small bit of closure. He would not forget who he was again, would not allow himself to forget the memories of his old wounds and old joys. But neither would he linger in them, nor life in their shadow. He would guard them with respect, and with care, but no longer could he let them dictate what his life was to be.  
He would always be a Doctor. And he would never kill again. But not for repentance, not for making up past deeds like it had been up until now. He would simply be what he always had been: A friend of to those in need, a giver of hope to the hopeless, a guiding hand for those who had lost their way. An honest man with a kind heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Soo, this general idea of exploring immortality has been jumping around in my head for quite some time. I can’t help but think that if Merlin survived ‘til today, there would be more going on that just pining for Arthur. Not because I don’t like the idea of Merlin pining for Arthur, but more because I think being immortal has got to be the most terrible thing ever and cannot but drive one insane. So yeah, here it is, my take on it. I wrote this stuff without thinking about it at all, I just wrote and sort of let it develop while I wrote. When I started, I had no idea what would come out. And I had no idea how to finish it, so I just sort of cut it off at one point. Honestly, I still think the ending is crap.
> 
> Please leave a review…? Pretty please?


End file.
